03/10/2001
The Egyptian Gazette Newspaper 2001/OCTOBER /03
Eleven years are long enough to evaluate the German Unity. What happened was a gentle revolution, a revolution which was carried out by people themselves without any imported theory. Of course the path of the unity was not strewn with roses.
May be on the occasion of the 11 th anniversary of the Unity it would not be amiss to examine the balance sheet of a united Germany. One can notice that German publications no longer take about East and West Germany, but about Germany. According to statistics the number of people who gained employment in Germany rose by annual average of 584,000 to a total of 38.53 million. The economy grew more than any year since 1991. Germany remains the largest exporting nation after the USA. Germany plays an important and leading role in EU. But life is not just economics and politics. Culture is probably the most enduring element in a country’s life. Recent statistics show that there are 17 million learning the German language all over the world, out of whom 11 millions live in central and eastern Europe. One can not but realize that Germany that was defeated in the war battle 50 years ago, has been a continuous peace battle winner since then. This would still be the most important part of the German balance sheet after 11 years of reunification.